Summary of April 16 OPL Board Meeting

Charlene Elgee, Library Manager at Citizenship and Immigration Canada and Secretary of Friends of the Ottawa Public Library Association Board of Directors attended this week's meeting of the OPL Board.

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For those of us who truly believe that this city needs and deserves a new central public library building, the April 16 meeting of the Ottawa Public Library Board held many fascinations. The theme of the week was strategic planning, both for this coming year and for 2008-2011. Fitting right into that was a presentation by Andrew Brown, Project Manager with Resource Planning Group (RPG). This is the company hired to develop the functional building program for the new central library. It's early days yet in the planning stages and a bit of a delay was caused by a decision to consider the possibility of including the City Archives in the new building.

Mr. Brown had the audience's attention as he took us on a world tour of some of the best public library buildings, monuments all to the value of libraries to their communities. Words were not necessary to give voice to the stark contrast offered by pictures of the OPL building; inside and outside, public and staff areas, all the photographs spoke eloquently to the need to invest in one of our city's most valuable assets.

Dovetailing nicely with the RPG presentation was the overview of the OPL Strategic Development 2008-2011 facilitated by Susan Wright. The lively interest shown by the Board members attests to their dedication and enthusiasm and, as they meet this weekend to study and debate this plan, let's hope that they are guided by the vision of a strong downtown Ottawa anchored by a beautiful, functional new public library!